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China Town (Photo credit: SPakhrin)

China is coming to town.

Like Japan in the 1980s, China will be the big Asian investor buying up pieces of America's landscape, natural resources and companies. It's a good thing.

Over the weekend a U.S. Commerce Department official said during a conference in Nanjing that China investment in the U.S. was set to double.

"Although the current stock of Chinese investments in the U.S. only adds up to $6 billion, we see the potential for a significant increase in that amount," said Steven Olson, executive director of SelectUSA, a program under the Department of Commerce aimed at attracting foreign investment.

China Daily reported Sunday from the Nanjing conference called The U.S.-China Cities Forum on Economic Cooperation and Investment. They wrote that the two countries signed investment contracts worth $3.4 billion at the forum for a total of 42 projects in 21 sectors - including manufacturing, energy conservation and environmental protection, electronics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The contracts include four Chinese firms investing $70 million in the U.S., according to the Ministry of Finance.

Investment is still lopsided, with the U.S. investing more in China than Chinese companies invest in the United States.

China is the fastest growing source of foreign investment in the U.S. The country's direct investment in the U.S. grew at an average annual rate of 53 percent from 2005 to 2010. According to the Ministry of Commerce, China was the fifth-largest investor globally in 2010, with outbound direct investment of $68.8 billion. But growth in investment in the U.S., at 44 percent, was much slower than that in Europe (101 percent) or Japan (302 percent).

President Barack Obama's meetings in February 2012 with Xi Jinping, China's vice president and soon-to-be leader, provide an opportunity to address this issue of China investments in the U.S. China's outward investment has substantial room to grow, and the United States has the potential to capture a larger share of it, noted David M. Marchick, Managing Director, Carlyle Group, in an op-ed on the Council on Foreign Relations' website.

Marchick said that China could be transformed into a large overseas investor, not just an exporter. He called for a policy framework between Washington and Beijing that would help promote additional Chinese investment into the United States, so long as particular investments do not compromise U.S. national security interests.

Given the slow pace of the economic recovery, the U.S. would benefit from Chinese direct investment. Critics argue that Chinese investment could compromise U.S. security interests and lead to job offshoring. While Chinese acquisition of certain U.S. companies in the defense or technology sectors would create national security concerns, the preponderance of potential Chinese investments in the United States would raise no such issues, Marchick wrote.